The Center for Trade Union and Human Rights (CTUHR) expresses its solidarity with the family and friends of Prudencio “Tatay Pruding” Cebu Calubid Jr as they file for a writ of habeas corpus for the 81-year old retired technician who was wrongly arrested in December 2024 and remains detained because of mistaken identity compounded with huge monetary rewards.

We condemn Tatay Pruding’s arrest, which clearly stems from being mistaken as former National Democratic Front of the Philippines (NDFP) consultant Prudencio Calubid, who was abducted and disappeared on June 26, 2006 during the presidency of Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo, and from the PhP 7.8 million bounty for the latter’s arrest.

Police officers’ greed for the monetary reward made them ignore the need to thoroughly investigate if the retired technician is really the NDFP consultant. It made them disregard any compassion for the elderly man, who is already wheelchair-bound and suffers from gout and kidney problems. It made them set aside proof that Tatay Pruding was an aircon technician who worked in the Subic Naval Base and Saudi Arabia.

Instead of recognizing their mistake and immediately releasing Tatay Pruding from detention, police officers doubled down on the injustice that they have committed. They have kept Tatay Pruding detained at the Manila City Jail and are waiting for the courts to force them to release the elderly man.

Tatay Pruding’s arrest also shows the lawless ruthlessness of the government’s counter-insurgency operations. State forces have disappeared Prudencio Calubid and have refused to surface him to date yet retained the huge bounty on his head. In 2006, family and friends of the former NDFP consultant immediately called for his surfacing, but police authorities have disregarded them and have thus victimized another family.

Human rights organization Karapatan cites seven cases of arrests due to mistaken identity that are closely related to monetary rewards. Perhaps the most famous case is that of Quezon City security guard Rolly Panesa who was detained for 10 months in 2012 because he was accused of being Benjamin Mendoza, a high-ranking official of the Communist Party of the Philippines.

The courts actually have no reason to deny the petition for habeas corpus for Tatay Pruding; he is simply not Prudencio Calubid and he was wrongfully arrested. The Ferdinand Marcos Jr government should review its policy of providing monetary rewards for the arrests of political activists. It should also stop criminalizing dissent, resume peace talks with the NDFP, and stop treating revolutionaries as terrorists with no human rights.